The Reel Voices Journey Continues

For the past four weeks, the San Diego Asian Film Foundation, the AjA Project, and Survivors of Torture have teamed up to bring the Reel Voices project to the amazing children of Crawford High who come from refugee families. This team is certainly very exciting for me because there is already a lot happening with the students' progress.

On a personal level, the Reel Voices Journey has allowed me an opportunity to provide some really special young people the opportunity to express themselves through learning the art of documentary filmmaking. I have felt this program has also given me a chance to learn from these young people about what matters most. This journey that we are all going on may not be about the end result, but about the journey that these students are embarking on and what it will do for their lives as they continue into adulthood.

Their experiences and stories are revealing themselves as they go through different photography and storytelling exercises. Two of these exercises that will prepare these amazing students for their films are the I Am poem, and the Old Home worksheet. These exercises are intended to get the students to process their past, and look at how they see it. Memories of what their home was like; the food, bed, the smells of the neighborhood, the things that they witnessed and how they remember them coupled with the poem about their identity truly makes for a good foundation to tell their stories through the media arts. I am certainly excited about what this could mean for the finished product. The most important thing for me though is the journey that they are taking now, and the opportunity that this could present for them.

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